Photography and Its Many Faces (Introduction to Thematic Section)
Photography and Its Many Faces (Introduction to Thematic Section)

Summary/Abstract: In his intriguingly titled book – Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before, Michael Fried raises important questions about the role of photography and its relationship with the viewer. The philosophy and its “problems,” theatricality, literariness, the position of the object (i.e. the objectivity of photography) as well as that of the subject, were already discussed during the late 1960s, when the medium was often placed on the border between art and technical skills, especially in the local context. Conscious of the weight of the statement given by Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida that “photographs […] are looked at when one is alone,” this thematic issue is aimed at expanding the boundaries within which photography is thought and discussed, examining the circumstances that determined the limits of representation as well as criticism of representation, its “ghettoization” as well as numerous conflicts that it brought about (and not only depicted). A beam of light is not reflected off the subject in only one direction; the ray returns to the photograph, symbolizing the relationship analyzed in numerous relevant studies. These studies will continue to harbor doubts about the status of photography as art, and not just a mechanical reflection of reality, which is too complex a topic for one editorial.

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